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Saturday, March 16, 2013

Book Review: Three Wishes by Naomi Stone

Book Review: Three Wishes
Author: Naomi Stone
Price: $2.99

Book Description'Three Wishes' is a collection of three romantic magical fantasies.Sometimes
True Love needs a little help. That’s where the Fairy Godmothers’
Union, True Love Local steps in. ‘Three Wishes’ tells three loosely
related stories in which the fairy godmothers help unite three couples
to fulfill their destinies together. ‘In Every Day an Hour’ is
the story of Jordan and Renata, who were divided by misunderstanding
before they ever had the chance to get started together. It takes a dose
of magic to dispel the misunderstandings and give love its chance.In
‘Happy to be Stuck With You’ it takes a fairy godmother’s interference
to get practical security-expert Craig and New Age mystic Amy together
in one place long enough to see past their differences. ‘In Your
Dreams’ calls on the fairy godmothers to free Linda from the
enchantment that has kept her from being her true self and letting Tony,
the man she secretly loves, see the true beauty within her.

Disclaimers

1. As you will find with other reviews that I have done for reviews,I have to state up-front I am not a fan of the Romance genre. I find the 'romantic' elements (everything from how they meet to how they stay together in the end despite having many moments of being downright rude or abusive towards one another)within most Romance genre stories just too far away from reality for me to find believable, and therefore too far removed from what you find and get in real life for me to enter the intended fictive state which you sign up to when you decide to proceed with reading the book.

From my non-reader of romance position, I weary over drop-dead gorgeous heroes
and heroines who just go through the (novel) motions being showered by the author with lots of
drama, conflict and raising stakes - yawn - to reach the fairytale Happily-Ever-After - yaawwwwnnnnn. (So, if you like the Romance genre, then you may not appreciate my reviews.)

2. I acquired this Kindle ebook when it was a free download.

3. As an aspiring author, I may assess some story and writing components from the perspective of a writer rather than a reader.

Char Mesan Reviews

I found a website that scoured the internet and detected any Kindle book that was currently being offered as a free download (I won't bother sharing the details of this website, because shortly about two months after I found it, the website was closed down by Amazon.com).

Each night, while the site operated, I went through between six hundred to two thousand thumbnails of books and downloaded the titles or covers which captured my interest. Fiction, non-fiction; for adult or young adults.

On one of the last nights before the site was shut down I scrolled through almost two thousand thumbnail's and only found one book that captured my interest. The title was "Three Wishes".

It had a 'magical' related cover: a plain, pretty blue background, with a glowing wand creating a heart-shaped magic spell.

Three wishes, magic; I downloaded the ebook without any hesitation. I love stories of magic, the type you read when you are a child but the story lines are maturer, for adults.

I didn't get to start reading the book until that weekend, but when I did, I enjoyed the three cute 'beach read' stories about an union of Fairy Godmother's fun interference to help along one couple per story to discover the love they are meant to share.

I enjoyed each of the three stories - the whole book - enough that I was happy to read more stories like that. (Which is why I later downloaded Witch Weigh that I had previously dismissed when I had seen it in the free listing - see review here and available in Kindle and Print versions here and here).

Anyway, each of the stories were delightful short reads. Who wouldn't want to have a Fairy Godmother working in the background to make sure that your life falls into place the way it is meant to be.

The story starts in a captivating prologue where during the scene Fairy Godmother Arabella tells six year old Renata that this is probably the last time Renata will see her again.To lessen the blow for the child who adores her 'Gomamma' the Fairy Godmother, Arabella, gives Renata a magic present of a single wish to be granted 'when the timing is right... and it comes straight from the heart'; the wish takes the physical form of a stone pendant hanging from a gold chain.

This prologue carries across the three individual tales where the grown up female falls in love with her perfect man when 'the time is right, and her wish is spoken straight from her heart.'

Delightful reading, nice simple romance.

Now, one of the things I don't like about the romance genre is the main characters when they start out disliking each other which after raising stakes, drama and conflict turn into a happy-ever-after ending. No matter how much a character is rude or borders on acting abusive towards the other party, and then resolve those issues, I just cannot buy that the characters true colours won't ever resurface for the couple to live happily ever after. I'm a real world, practical type of person. Those type of relationship don't last forever; not in this era where getting a divorce is much easier then era's past. Unless the couple work at their relationship this mismatched pairings eventually come to a bitter end, whether it takes seven months, or seven 'itchy-feet' years! So, when I read stories that contain strong romance elements, even if the story's dominant genre is not Category Romance, it doesn't take me much to toss the story aside as being too 'saccharin' (Saccharin is a fake sugar that is sweet to begin with but leaves a bitter aftertaste that lingers). Give me real romance, real characterisation anyday;something that will make ME believe that happy ever after is possible for real people, not just drop-dead gorgeous heroes and heroines (since when are these characters hero's anyway, just because they fall in love?)

Only the second story in three wishes came dangerously close to being my worst type of romance story. But, thankfully, the author -- oops, fairy godmother -- locked the couple alone together which forces them to eventually talk to each other instead of the usual character assumptions, and as the two main characters motives became clear, it is totally plausible that a security expert man (I refuse to call him a hero) will be 'unamused', 'frustrated' or 'irked' by a woman who is not security conscious in the slightest even when she probably should be. This couple talking is the bridge for the couple to consider the other's point of view, and the author is to be admired for bringing the couple together based on them accepting the other person's point of view even though it doesn't change their own So, well handled Naomi Stone.

The story's are each quick reads, and I am giving the book a four and a half star rating because there were only a few moments which started to bog down in details that had me skipping some of the text to get to the next 'good bit'. Otherwise I would have given it five stars, because the cover, title, back cover jacket blurb, prologue and author's writing skills won my attention and interest to continue to reading to the end.

As mentioned above, I downloaded the book when it was free, but it is now back to its listed price of $2.99. I think the price is just right for such a short but delightful set of mildly connected short stories.

Three Wishes by Naomi Stone is available from Amazon.com here, or you can click on the image below:

2 comments:

Hi, I just came across this today after seeing a shorter version on Amazon and wanted to thank you for the good review. I'm very glad you appreciated the stories in 'Three Wishes,' and I thought I'd let you know that I have a full length book coming out next month, 'Wonder Guy' in which the fairy godmothers again play a role.

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